Record-breaking Twitch streamer Ludwig Ahgren is moving to YouTube | Engadget

YouTube Gaming has been aggressively luring Twitch creators to its platform, and the latest to defect is “Ludwig” Ahgren. Ludwig is perhaps best known for his marathon streaming session that allowed him to break the Twitch all-time subscriber record held by Ninja, eventually hitting 283,066 all-time active subs.

Ludwig broke the news in an amusing Twitter video that showed him driving with his manager “Slime” in a purple car that eventually explodes after they get out. He then jumps into a red model, driving home the point that he’s leaving team purple for team red. “It’s pretty much the same one,” says Slime. “Yeah, it’s just like a different color,” Ludwig replies. (“We actually blew up a car and one-take-jaked it,” Slime tweeted separately.) 

In a reply on Twitter, Twitch said “You’re a mogul in every sense, Ludwig. Best of luck and keep doing big things out there. However, the site has been bleeding talent to its rival of late. Ludwig’s departure follows recent moves to YouTube Gaming by Benjamin Lupo (“DrLupo“) and TimTheTatMan (Tim Betar), along with previous defections by big-name streamers Lannan “LazarBeam” Eacott, Elliott “Muselk” Watkins and Rachell “Valkyrae” Hofstetter. Jack “CouRage” Dunlop also jumped ship in 2019. 

In a separate video explaining the move, Ludwig said that he first spoke to YouTube gaming as “leverage” but planned to stay with Twitch “because I’m a Twitch guy.” However, he later realized that YouTube made more sense, in part because he wants to produce content like Mogul Money on top of game react videos. 

He also noted that if he had stayed with Twitch, “I would have to be grinding hours,” and that “I loved Twitch, but it wasn’t necessarily a two-way street.” Finally, he said that while the change wasn’t necessarily about money, “YouTube offered me more money. Straight up.”